2 Die in Shooting, Detroit Medical Facility Blaze

DETROIT (AP) — A man identified by employees as a former maintenance worker opened fire inside a Detroit medical facility, sending screaming workers and visitors rushing for the doors just moments before the building erupted in flames.

Crews digging through the gutted Park Medical Centers building recovered the remains of a man and woman hours after the Tuesday morning blaze, Detroit police said in a statement.

Authorities did not release the identities of the dead, pending autopsies, but police had been searching for 35-year-old medical assistant Sharita Williams and the fired maintenance worker, who relatives said was her ex-boyfriend.

Williams’ mother, Antha Williams-Hill, told The Associated Press that one of her daughter’s co-workers told her that the man threatened her daughter inside.

“He said, ‘You think I’m playing with you?'” Williams-Hill said. “He told the other girl, ‘I think you better get out of here.’ The girl left and said she then heard two shots.”

Last week, Sharita Williams was granted a personal protection order against the man, according to Wayne County Court records.

Williams-Hill said two days earlier, someone had emailed her sexually explicit photos of her daughter that also were posted on Facebook. The text accompanying the photos read: “How do you like Sharita’s new boyfriend?” her mother said.

Dr. Stuart Kirschenbaum, a podiatrist who operated his private practice from the building for about 30 years, said he heard a security guard yell that the gunman “had taken Sharita and is shooting at other people in the building.”